GTL Products

GTL products represent a pioneering innovation to increase the supply of highly-demanded liquid hydrocarbons. Pearl GTL products are virtually sulphur free and have practically no contaminants such as heavy metals or aromatics. Their paraffinic chemical nature ensures that they are highly biodegradable and almost odourless.

Pearl GTL uses Shell’s leading technology to create cost-effective products for our customers which are cleaner-burning than their conventional counterparts and have improved performance benefits. We are using Shell’s world-class downstream trading and marketing capabilities to maximize the value of GTL products for both Qatar Petroleum and Shell.

What is GTL?

GTL Products from Shell

GTL Base Oils

GTL Base Oils can be used for the manufacture of lubricants that keep vehicle engines, gearboxes and transmissions operating smoothly. Pearl GTL is one of the world’s largest sources of lubricant base oil with the capacity to produce about 30,000 barrels per day, enough to fill 225 million cars per year.

GTL Base Oils represent an entirely new way of producing synthetic base oils – the main component of lubricants – from natural gas. We market our gas-to-liquid process in the lubricants industry as Shell PurePlus Technology. It converts natural gas into crystal-clear base oils with virtually none of the impurities found in crude oil.

GTL Kerosene

GTL Kerosene is used for heating and lighting, but its main use is for aviation, increasing the range of fuels for aircraft. GTL Kerosene burns with lower sulphur dioxide, lower nitrogen oxides and particulate emissions than conventional oil-based kerosene. At higher concentrations it can help improve air quality at busy airports. The blend used is known as GTL Jet Fuel. The product has lower emissions that can benefit local air quality, which Shell believes will make it attractive to airlines and airport authorities. In addition to GTL Kerosene lowering emissions that affect air quality, it has a higher energy density per kilogram than conventional kerosene. This means a GTL Kerosene-fuelled aircraft may be able to carry slightly less fuel to fly the same distance.

In addition Shell GTL Kerosene has excellent combustion properties with low emissions, making it suitable as lamp oil and fuel for use in greenhouses due to its high smoke point. It can also be used as a feedstock in manufacturing the raw ingredients for detergents, and it makes a good solvent for metal cleaning and dry cleaning.

GTL Fuels

Shell GTL Fuel has broadly similar physical characteristics to crude diesel derived from crude oil, but it has a much higher cetane number, a higher mass calorific value, lower levels of sulphur and aromatics, and a lower density.

GTL Gasoil

GTL Gasoil is a diesel-type fuel that helps diversity the supply of diesel fuels and can help reduce local emissions. Pearl GTL produces approximately 50,000 barrels of GTL Gasoil per day, enough to fill over 160,000 cars every day. Most of the GTL Gasoil produced at Pearl GTL is used as a high quality blend component with conventional oil-based diesel and supplied through the existing diesel distribution system across the world. Shell has already blended some GTL Gasoil from our plant in Bintulu, Malaysia, into the Shell V-Power Diesel we sell to customers at more than 5,000 retail locations in Europe and Asia.

GTL Normal Paraffin

GTL Normal Paraffin is used in the production of detergents such as washing powder and soap. Traditionally detergent manufacturing companies extract conventional normal paraffin from oil-based kerosene and return the remaining kerosene to refineries. GTL Normal Paraffin eliminates this need for the extraction stage of the conventional production process and so offers companies cost and location advantages. Also known as light detergent feedstock (LDF) and heavy detergent feedstock (HDF), these products are used in making washing up liquids and PVC plasticisers.

GTL Naphtha

GTL Naphtha is an alternative feedstock to conventional naphtha for chemicals plants that make the building blocks for plastics. It has much higher paraffin content than conventional naphtha, which means each litre of GTL Naphtha can produce more plastics.